


Bleeding Out

by canadianstuck



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Near Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 06:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8317561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadianstuck/pseuds/canadianstuck
Summary: “Why isn’t she waking up?” Percy asks.Vex is wounded in a fight, and Percy can only stand and watch, and wonder if it's too late to say all the things he's dying to tell her.





	

Percy prefers to settle things through diplomacy. He really does. But when things go to shit and the problem becomes a fight, he doesn’t mind. It’s nice to break out Bad News every once in a while.  
From atop the ledge he’s scrambled up to, he has a clear view of everything below him. It seems Vox Machina has been part of a double hire, and the other group is intent on seizing the artifact and getting the payment. Offers of sharing, or simply of letting the mercenaries live, were not well received, and so here they are. There are already a few bodies scattered across the floor of the crumbling castle, covering the stones in slick blood.  
Percy shoots a man in the knee, blowing it out completely. “Get fucked!” Grog shouts as he brings his axe down on the man before he even hits the floor, crushing his skull.  
Another one down. Four more to go.  
Percy winces as the mage amongst their enemies hits him with a bolt of energy. His chest aches, feels like it’s about to collapse, and then relaxes. Nothing Pike or a potion can’t fix later, and nothing that’s going to slow him down. He levels the sights of Bad News at the woman and pulls the trigger.  
Nothing except a puff of smoke and a muted thunk.  
A twinge in his chest that has nothing to do with his injury. A misfire. There’s no time to fix it, but he must find the time if he wants to help with the fight. “C’mon, c’mon,” he whispers, fiddling with the gun, glancing up at the fight every other second. “This is not the time!” he says.  
Movement catches his eye. A fifth man, one who hasn’t joined the fight yet, slides across the room like oil over water, daggers in hand. The weapons gleam with a sickly light, clearly dipped in something that’s probably very, very bad. His target is Vex, who’s standing off to the side, dropping arrows amongst their enemies.  
Percy’s heart stops as time slows. He fumbles with Bad News, pulling it back up to his sights. “Vex!” he shouts, trying to warn her. His fingers, usually so fast, feel slow and clumsy as he struggles to pull the trigger. Bad News fires at last. The shot goes wide. Percy can only watch in horror as those daggers sink into Vex’s side. “Vex!” he screams again, for all the good it does him. She falls to the stones, blood bubbling out of a coin-sized hole in her armour.  
Vax is the first to react, vaulting across the room and burying his own daggers in the assassin’s neck. He rips out the man’s throat, sends him sprawling. Percy can see that Vax is bleeding from a nasty slash down his arm, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. Vax pulls out a glass vial full of golden liquid and unstoppers it. He presses it to Vex’s lips, holding her head up, helping her drink. One of the mercenaries heads for the twins, but Keyleth throws him against the wall with a shouted word and a wave of her hand. He’s dispatched by a shot to the head.  
“Is she okay?” Scanlan shouts from across the room, where he’s been offering support from.  
“The potion’s not working!” Vax shouts back. Grog and Percy quickly finish off the last man still standing and both run over to the twins.  
Scanlan says something in a sing-song voice, something calm and warm sounding, which Percy recognizes as a Healing Word, but there’s no response from Vex. She’s pale, so pale, and Percy’s heart is threatening to jump out of his throat. Vax is covered in his sister’s blood, but the bleeding hasn’t stopped.  
“Let me try,” Pike says, pushing past the cluster of them. Light fills her as she presses her hands against Vex’s wound. It flows out, wrapping itself around her, filling the room with a holy glow. Vex’s pallor lifts, and for a moment, she looks like she’s going to be okay. The terrible pale leaves her cheeks, and her breathing evens out. Pike lifts her hands. Everything teeters on the edge of okay for a minute. And then everything crashes back down.  
The wound, half healed, opens again, new blood mingling with old. “Fuck,” Vax whispers, cradling Vex even closer.  
“The daggers were dipped in something,” Percy says. His eyes don’t leave Vex. He feels helpless as he watches her dying. There’s a horrible gnawing emptiness that’s replaced his heart as he remembers Cassandra dying in the snow, calling out to him as he ran away. He’s not running now, for all the good that’s doing anyone. For all he’s staying, for all he loves Vex, he’s useless.  
“I still have Greater Restoration,” Pike says, though she sounds unsure. She presses her hands back to Vex, light filling her again. Her holy symbol glows, a burning flame against the muted torches that light the room. Vex’s breathing stops—  
—And starts again after the longest minute Percy has ever lived through. Her breathing evens out, but it’s shallow. She’s still pale, but it’s not the pallor of death.  
“Why isn’t she waking up?” Percy asks.  
“Whatever poison was on that dagger, it must suppress healing magic,” Vax says, stroking Vex’s hair.  
Scanlan picks up the dagger with two fingers. “That might come in handy later,” he says to no one in particular, tearing a strip of cloth from one of the bodies and wrapping it up.  
“We have to go back to the keep,” Vax says.  
“We need to get the artifact first,” says Grog.  
“Fuck the artifact.”  
“Vax, I know you’re upset—” Keyleth starts.  
“Of course I’m fucking upset!” Vax shouts. “We need to get out of here and take care of my sister.”  
Percy manages a watery smile. “When Vex wakes up and finds out you’re the reason we’re out ten thousand gold…” He watches Vax struggle with himself, knows the struggle because he’s having the same one. “How about this: I’ll stay here with Vex, and Pike, and the rest of you can get the artifact and we’ll go home. We’re so close, it’d be a shame to leave empty-handed.”  
“I’m staying here,” Vax says flatly.  
“They need you. What if there’s traps? No one else knows how to disarm them, except by setting them off.” Percy feels awful, suggesting the twins separate, but he knows it’s necessary for the mission. “We’ll stay right here, and Pike and I will take care of her. You’ll be done in under an hour. She won’t die.” Gods but he wishes he was as confident about that as he sounds.  
“We’ll take good care of her, Vax,” Pike says.  
The cleric’s soft voice seems to ease something in Vax. “Alright,” he says. “Alright, but if anything happens, I don’t care if it’s a sneeze, you tell me over the earring and we’re calling everything off to take her home.”  
“Deal,” Percy says.  
Vax transfers Vex to Percy’s arms. He sits and holds her up, checking her wound to make sure it’s still closed. The skin is raw and shiny, but holding all her insides together.  
Soon, the three of them are left alone. Percy and Pike sit in silence, keeping a watch over Vex. She feels small in his arms, feels cold even pressed up against him. Percy prays to every god he knows, trying his best to keep himself together, to keep himself from drowning in fear and despair.  
“You love her,” Pike says. It isn’t a question.  
Percy thinks about denying it, but finds he can’t. “Yes,” he croaks.  
“Does she know that?”  
“No.”  
“She’ll wake up; eventually she will.”  
Silence again rules the room.  
***  
The trip home feels almost too easy. Artifact secured, the group leaves. Grog carries Vex. Percy can’t help but feel she’s too small, lying there in the goliath’s arms. Outside, Keyleth opens a gate in a tree, and before Percy knows it, they’re walking in the courtyard. The warmth of the sunshine fails to reach him after the chill of the castle and the sickly cold of Vex’s skin.  
“I’ll take her to her room,” Grog says, marching off. Vax skitters anxiously at his side, holding onto Vex’s hand.  
“Should we put her in Pike’s room? Pike, will you need to heal her again?” he asks.  
Pike shakes her head. “She has to heal that wound by herself. I’ve taken the sting out of it, and the poison, but that’s all that can be done. She’ll be more comfortable in her own bed.”  
For the rest of the day, Percy hammers away in his workshop. He isn’t even sure what he’s making, but anything is better than giving into the fear that’s clinging to his heart. He’s so engrossed that he doesn’t realize someone is knocking at his door for several minute. When he clues in, he pushes the door open, heart dropping to his feet as he sees Vax standing there. “Is she…” he says. He can’t bring himself to ask the fatal question.  
“She’s fine,” Vax says, leaning against the doorway. “That’s a fucking lie, she’s not fine, but she’s going to be.” He runs a hand through his hair. Percy stares at him, and the silence stretches out. Eventually Vax starts up again. “I just wanted to say thank you. For watching over her.”  
“Of course,” Percy says. He smiles. “She’s family. You’re family.” I won’t abandon you like I abandoned my family he thinks, biting back the words that are so bitter even to think.  
Vax scans the room, seems to notice the shadows under Percy’s eyes, the way his hands quiver by his side. “You’re part of the family too Percival. Take care of yourself.” He leaves, silent without trying in the way only Vax can move.  
Percy is left standing, hammer still in hand. The frustration and fear that have been lurking all day finally rise up and swallow him. The tears come freely. Percy can’t tell if he’s sad or angry or if he’s even any emotion in particular except for a lingering sense of uselessness.  
He sits on the cot he keeps in the workshop and holds his head in his hands. For all he loves Vex—and he does, so much that it aches—there is absolutely nothing he can do.  
***  
Percy doesn’t come up for breakfast. He didn’t sleep until the night was mostly over, when sheer physical exhaustion drove him to bed. Upon waking, he doesn’t think of food. He thinks instead of Vex.  
Outside her room, he wavers, wondering if he should even enter this private space of hers, but eventually he knows that he needs to see how she is. He pushes the door open, expecting Vax to be at his sister’s side, but the room is empty, except for the bed. Vex lies there, propped up on a couple of pillows, tucked in by a careful hand. A glass of water and a tray of fruit sit on the little table near the bed, just in case she should wake up and need a drink or a snack. Some of her colour has returned, though her skin is still sallow. There’s an assortment of herbs and salves on the table as well, ones that Percy recognizes as being for pain and swelling and other things too minor to be considered magic. The thought that she might be hurting, even now, even unconscious, pains Percy.  
He sits beside her in the empty chair that has been drawn over and takes her hand in his. It’s warm, which is a vast improvement from yesterday. “Now Vex,” he says, giving her hand a squeeze, “I want you to know you’re not allowed to die, because I—we would all miss you terribly.” He manages to keep his voice light and joking, even though he’s serious. There’s no response from Vex, no sign that she could respond even if she heard him. Percy is seized with a need to keep talking. “I’m sorry I didn’t see that man earlier. I’m sorry I missed my shot. Gods Vex, I’m sorry. I wish that I was lying there instead of you.” His voice cracks. “I can’t stand to see you hurt like this. I—I love you.”  
Vex’s eyelids flutter ever so slightly.  
Percy doesn’t notice, keeps going. “I’m sorry I’ve never said it before, and I know you can’t hear me now, but I do, love you I mean. You’re more than a sister to me. I can’t express how much you mean to me.” He lowers his head so its resting on the bed, touching her hand. “I love you,” he whispers, the stream of words finally dammed again.  
“Percival,” Vex whispers, her voice rusty.  
Startled, Percy shoots upright. “Vex! Oh thank gods you’re awake. I’ve been so worried. Let me get Vax.” He stands, but he’s stopped by her hand tightening on his.  
“Did you… mean that?” she says.  
“That I’ve been worried? Of course.”  
“That you… love me.” She opens her eyes, looks at him with a strange intensity.  
Percy’s mouth is suddenly dry. He licks his lips and looks her dead in the eye. “Yes,” he says. “Yes I did. Do.” He tugs on the collar of his shirt. “I’m sorry, I won’t mention it again, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”  
Vex squeezes his hand. “Oh Percival,” she says. “You haven’t… realized, have you?”  
“Realized what?”  
“That I love you too.”  
Percy’s heart doesn’t just leap, it soars. The worry of the last few days is swept away. He grins. “Really?”  
“Really.” Vex winces and shifts in the bed. “Ow.”  
“Lie still. I’ll get Vax, he’ll want to know you’re awake,” Percy says. As he goes to leave the room, he is filled with contentment, with a warmth he has not known since Vex fell.  
“Oh, Percy?”  
He turns back to the bed. “Yes?”  
“How much did we get for the artifact?”  
Percy laughs. Vex is definitely going to be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
